Africa seemed like a good place to go to see the
animals that would appear in the book I'm working on, Noah's Ark. Every month, I
sit down to tell you about what I'm doing as an illustrator, and I'd like to
tell you about our latest trip. In the story of Noah's Ark, all the animals are
taken two by two into the ark, a male and a female of each species. I wanted to
see animals interact in their own habitat so I could draw them. What made Africa
special was that it was an experience for all the senses. In Botswana, a country
in Southern Africa, my husband, Joe, and I went on a safari. We slept in tents
and awoke at dawn to the most amazing noises. We heard male lions calling to one
another , once, right outside our tent! We heard weird spotted hyena calls and
loud baboon barks with only the canvas of the tent walls to keep us apart. My
favorite bird was the francolin and it woke us up with raucous shrieks and
cackles. The francolin is like a wild chicken in its habits. We also heard
impalas snorting -- a loud snort means "look out!", and one morning we heard a
leopard, which sounds like someone sawing wood. And all this was before
breakfast!
During the day, we would drive around the most
beautiful country spotting animals all around us. Some of my favorites were the
ostrich (we don't have any bird in our country that looks like these big guys),
the warthogs, which are likeable an humorous, and hippos. The hippos we saw were
in a lagoon and they were very curious. When one spotted us it would say, "Ha,
ha, ha, ha..." in a low gruff voice. Then the whole pod, which is the name for a
group of hippos, would come over to see us. There were great big crocodiles in
the water too.
The Botswana people that helped us on the safari were
extremely knowledgeable about the animals and very patient with us. Ali and
July, our guides knew the Latin names of every plant bird and animal we could
spot and the intricacies of how they all were inter-dependent.
The first day I learned an important rule. We stopped
the Range Rover for a cup of tea and biscuits and I thought it would be a great
idea to go for a little run down the road, because I was missing my daily three
mile run. "No go!", Ali explained that there were predators all around,
camouflaged in the vegetation. They recognize us as super predators because our
eyes are on the fount of our heads and we stand up tall. But if we run or make
distress calls, or roll around in the grass that same animal, a lion, cheetah,
or leopard, would look at us in a different way. It would see us as prey! After
that I always walked calmly, even when I went alone back to my tent to get a
jacket and came face to face with a big bull elephant.
I left a bit of my heart in beautiful Botswana. When
our hosts sang their lovely folk songs to us, I promised myself I would write in
my hedge a gram about the elegant, warm, and thoughtful Africans who shared
their country with us.
I hope that you all visit Africa some day.
I'm looking forward to telling you more about my trip in next month's hedge a
gram.